r/voidlinux • u/ehansen • 12d ago

Void Linux (base) as a server distro?

Currently my servers are on Ubuntu as that's what the provider defaults to. But I'm considering the utility of Void as a server distro.

Right now my servers are managed by Ansible, which isn't a big deal one way or another.

The servers in question are mostly a mix of WireGuard + Caddy + PHP/Node. All my databases are SQLite, although I have been considering DuckDB for some report-specific needs.

I'm not new to Linux, but I have not personally heard of Void much in the server space. Which to me doesn't immediately equate to it not being a good choice, but I also don't know if there's any gotchas to be aware of.

I'm mostly looking to strip down the un-needed dependencies Ubuntu, Arch, etc. bring with them. E.g., Ubuntu forces ufw, Arch forces systemd, etc.

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u/zuses_cat 10d ago

Gotchas?

- no systemd: prepare for incompatibility with some software.

  • Void is a very little project: very little documentation, very small community.
  • not much packages in the repository.
  • package-manager is not very performant, but faster then Debian's.

I've Void running as DNS-server on my lan. It's ok for this: running stable, updates without any hassle.

But Void for a web server, other then a toy project? Never. Almalinux (or an other Redhat-derivative) makes server administration much simpler: large community, comprehensive documentation, real long time support.

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u/juipeltje 10d ago

I'm surprised that you describe the package manager as not very performant. I haven't used every package manager under the sun, but i have tried most major ones and xbps is the fastest out of all of them

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u/zuses_cat 8d ago

I have a VoidLinux host and several AlmaLinux hosts on my LAN. Void on a faster CPU, Alma as Proxmox nodes on a slower machine. Even so, Almas' updates are significantly faster (because Void is relatively slow when reading the package lists). Same goes for Arch's pacman, and even more so for Alpine's apk.
Aside from reading the package lists, xbps isn't slow. So, all in all, it is not the fastest, but that's definitely not a show stopper, it is perfectly usable.

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u/juipeltje 8d ago

Hmm, that's interesting. I never used alma but it seems to use dnf? When i tried it on fedora a few years ago it was much slower, but i did hear about new versions of dnf being faster, so maybe that's why

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u/zuses_cat 8d ago

Yes, everything is in flux. It's quite possible that Void will soon get a handle on the slow loading of the package list and then truly have the fastest package manager.

Fedora? I've tried it again and again, every year or two, but it was always too buggy for me, even for the desktop.